Return of the Fanboy

As a kid, I loved comic books. Every month, I spent my entire allowance on titles such as The New Teen Titans, X-Men, and The Huntress (who is, of course, Batman’s daughter in a parallel universe – I kid you not).

My parents discouraged this habit and counseled me on financial responsibility. But secretly, I think they were happy about it. After all, I showed no interest in sports or trucks or toy soldiers – my obsession with comics and superheroes was so stereotypically boyish that it must have provided them with some small degree of comfort.

And they’re not the only ones. A decade ago, a friend invited me to dinner with her new husband. When I arrived, she was clearly nervous, but hopeful that these two very different men in her lives would find something, anything to talk about for an hour or two. She needn’t have worried. The first X-Men film had just been released, and we were both dying to see it. We spent the entirety of the meal discussing our favorite characters and storylines, and went straight from the restaurant to the theatre, where we revisited the sense of wonder we had known as children. My friend sat between us, relieved yet befuddled at being surrounded by two such incredible geeks. I didn’t much notice; when I wasn’t lost in nostalgic reverie, I was concentrating on Hugh Jackman’s chest hair.

Looking back, it’s hard to say why characters like Superman, Spider-Man, and Green Lantern were so exciting to me as a child. It’s too easy to suggest that I loved them simply because I could see every bicep and deltoid bulging beneath their skintight outfits (though I have to admit that I can still remember the day I discovered that Peter Parker slept in the nude on page 17).

Perhaps it was their altruism. No, really – I remember carrying on long debates in my head about what differentiated super-heroes from super-villains, and why anyone blessed with unique gifts such as flight, x-ray vision, or an invisible plane would use them so selflessly. At the end of the day, what attracted me to my masked crusaders for truth and justice might have been their innate sense of decency. Because at their core, these were good, good people … who just happened to have all those biceps and deltoids.

And yet, I know there’s something else that fascinated me about these muscle-bound do-gooders. There were similarities that extended beyond self-sacrifice and a lovely silhouette. Obviously, most were blessed with superpowers that mere mortals do not enjoy (I wasn’t one of those comic fans who liked Batman best because he had no superpowers; in fact, I thought it showed a real lack of imagination on his part). Also, most had not asked for these abilities, usually attained either by freak accident or alien birth. Finally, most of my heroes employed the use of a secret identity, in an attempt to obtain a halfway normal life, as if such a thing were possible. And I wonder: could it be that my sexually repressed 11-year old self was subconsciously seeing parallels between my closeted existence and theirs?

Whatever the reason, I loved them.  Unlike my fellow fanboys, I had a special affinity for female superheroes, like Supergirl, Batgirl, and Spider-Woman (at the time, I convinced myself that this attraction was evidence of heterosexuality, but now I think it was just another form of diva worship), but like most of them, I didn't continue to buy comics once I reached high school.  Comics provided an escape that was socially acceptable for someone in junior high, but not something I could even pretend was "cool" once I entered the ninth grade.  Just before high school began, I sold my entire stash of comic books for about a hundred dollars.  It seemed like a lot of money at the time, but it was probably a fraction of what those books were worth.  That was almost thirty years ago.

Two years ago, I met a charming fellow I'll call Shorebird, who would later become my boyfriend and then my live-in boyfriend.  Shorebird is a fantastic guy, with a variety of interests.  Among other things, he enjoys "So You Think You Can Dance," The New York Yankees, and ... Wonder Woman.  Not Wonder Woman comics, per se, but the iconography of Wonder Woman fascinates him.  And since he moved into the house, we've been collecting various Wonder Woman merchandise which we've been displaying in the kitchen.  Shorebird even went so far as to have an image of Wonder Woman tattooed on his arm.  That's commitment, people.

And I suppose that inviting Wonder Woman back into my life - or at least my home - has opened an old door for me.  Recently, I was on a business trip and looking for something interesting to read, and I came across The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines, a wonderful book by Mike Madrid that recounts the history of women in comic books against the context of the changing role of women in society.  It sounds really academic when I say it that way, but the book itself was funny, provocative, and greatly entertaining.  Like me, Mike always had a special place in his heart for kick-ass superheroines, and I read the entire thing over the course of four airplane trips in two days.

And, as luck would have it, this rekindling of my love of comic books is coinciding with a much-hyped "relaunch" of the entire DC Comics line: 52 series, all starting back at Issue #1.  What's more, these days I can buy a comic book for two bucks via the Apple store on my iPad.  Need you ask if I've made any purchases lately?  Is Superman a space alien?  (For those who live in a cave, the answer is yes.)  Last week, I purchased the first of the relaunched titles, Justice League #1 (no sightings of Wonder Woman yet, but she's on the cover, so I hope to see her next month) and this week, I bought both Batwing #1 (a new colleague of Batman, based in the Congo) and Batgirl #1 (my favorite of the bunch so far, but also the most controversial, for reasons I might explore at a later date).  As the month progresses, I imagine I'll be purchasing Wonder Woman #1 (naturally), Teen Titans #1 (a favorite from my youth), Catwoman #1 (meow), and perhaps even a few others.

It would seem that I'm a fanboy again.

We Are All Transgender

When I was a much younger gay activist, just out of the closet as a matter of fact, I was asked if I would join the Employee Resource Group at my company for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Employees. My head still spinning with the new identity I had just adopted, I was nonetheless eager to jump right in and start making a difference, and I enthusiastically signed up.

At my very first meeting, I asked what I honestly thought was an innocent question: why weren’t we including transgender people in our name and mission? The looks on the faces around the room immediately told a story: this group had been down this road before, and wasn’t eager to repeat the journey.

“We don’t have any transgender employees at this company,” I was told.

“That we know of,” I responded.

And then the conversation continued, with neither side saying anything that hadn’t been said before. “Sexual orientation and gender identity are two totally separate things,” one person said. Another chimed in with, “people already think that we’re gender-confused. I don’t think we should add to that perception.”

But, a number in my group – a smaller number – agreed with my stance, and so the debate was reborn, for an hour or so. The leader of the group eventually shut the conversation down, then gazed at me with a withering look, clearly wishing she could rescind her invitation. Sadly, the things I heard in that hour have become all too familiar to me over the years.

This is an open letter to my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, particularly those who wish that the “LGBT” acronym could be forever abbreviated to “LG,” full stop. I have something to say to you.

You might think that the reason you’re hated by the haters is because deep in your hearts, you harbor a physical desire for persons of the same sex. You are wrong. They couldn’t care less about what you’re feeling. They hate you because you act upon those feelings. If you are true to yourself, you date, flirt with, sleep with, and often settle down and buy property with persons of the same sex. Some gay men walk with a supermodel’s swagger, and use words like “fierce” and “fabulous.” Some lesbians cut their hair short, and haven’t worn a skirt since high school. And this is why they hate you. They hate you because you break their rules of what a man or a woman is supposed to be. You violate gender norms they hold dear, you cross a line they don’t ever want crossed. They hate you because you’re transgender.

Maybe you don’t want to change your anatomy; most of us don’t. But in the minds of those who hate us, you have betrayed your anatomy as surely as those who do. In this way, “queer” might as well be a synonym for “transgender.” Brothers and sisters, we are all transgender. Deal with it.

And if those who hate us make up stories about us, such as we all wish we could undergo Sex Reassignment Surgery, let them. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve told lies about us. They lie about us all the time – and I know it hurts to hear those lies. But we can’t let their lies dictate our battle for civil rights, or how we plan to fight. We can’t allow their bigotry to draw boundaries around our humanity. Supporting those in our families, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and our schools who are transgender is the right thing to do – not just because we’re gay or lesbian, but because we’re human. And if we limit our capacity for compassion and kindness because of what Pat Robertson or Tony Perkins might say about us on the television, then we don’t deserve to be free. I, for one, refuse to take marching orders from those who want me dead.

When you were born, it’s likely that the first words spoken were either “it’s a girl” or “it’s a boy!” And with those simple words, a limitless number of expectations were piled upon you, when you were only minutes old. Whoever spoke those words could only see what was between your legs; they had no way of knowing what was inside your heart. And if you’re a lesbian or a gay man, it’s likely that you disappointed someone along the way, someone who expected you to be someone that you’re not. In that way, our lives aren’t always easy. In that way, we are all transgender. In that way, we owe it to ourselves to look out for our own.

Good Bi (Yellow Brick Road)

Don’t know if you’ve heard about this or not, but just yesterday, the New York Times broke a groundbreaking story about bisexual men. They exist. And also unicorns.

Okay, I’m joking about the unicorns, but apparently bisexual men are real. Which will come as a shock to a lot of my friends – and when I say “a lot of my friends,” I pretty much mean the gay guys.

For some reason, gay men don’t want to believe in bi guys. We all seem to understand that female sexuality can be fluid, but the idea of a dude who gets turned on by chicks and dudes is anathema to us. I can understand this, to a degree. For many of us, the journey to GayVille included a pit stop in BiTown. Of course, the gentlemen who briefly disembarked from the Rainbow Train and donned a bisexual identity weren’t really bi – they just weren’t ready to make the whole trip in one fell swoop. And because of this, many of us are doubtful when a man takes the trip to BiTown and stays there.

The usual criticism of bi guys – beyond the fact that they’re fooling themselves and attempting to fool everyone else – is that they’re cowards. If so-called bisexual men were only brave enough to stand up to the scorn that heterosexuals dish out to the full-on gays, a certain segment of gay guys proclaim, they wouldn’t have to pretend that they get excited at the thought of a naked woman. And the proclamation usually ends there, because these are the gay guys who get nauseous whenever the notion of a naked woman enters their brains.

When the vapors recede, another criticism of bisexual men emerges: they’re just greedy. In fact, this kind of insatiable lust, one that includes both kitties and roosters, is so out of control, so ravenous, that it’s really more of a fetish than an actual sexual orientation. Of course, this is just a slight variation on the things that Tony Perkins and Pat Robertson say about us, but that’s completely and utterly beside the point … right?

The truth that is revealed by these blatantly false stereotypes is that many gay men (and by “many gay men,” I mean a completely unscientific sampling of my own friends) don’t really know any bisexual men. Or at least they don’t knowingly know them. And let’s face it – why would a bisexual man want to come out as such to a community of Kinsey Sixes? We haven’t exactly been all that welcoming.

The truth is that bisexuality is a sexual orientation, just like homosexuality and heterosexuality. Bisexual men (and women) did not choose to be bi. Like the rest of us, they were born that way. The truth is that bisexual men (and women) don’t lust after every person on the planet, in the same way that straight guys don’t find every woman attractive, and gay men can be very particular about the men that fall into the narrow category that is their “type.” The truth is that many bisexual men (and women) find a partner and settle down in monogamous or “monogam-ish” relationships. And the fact that this makes it harder for you to tell who’s bi and who’s not is your problem, not theirs. The truth is that it takes a lot of courage, not cowardice, to openly identify as a bisexual man these days.

And that, as they say ... is that.

Book Report: "The Help"

About a year ago, a bunch of my friends started talking about a book they had just read.  The book was called The Help.  They told me it was funny, and touching, and a real page-turner.  Then they put a button on the conversation: “You would love it,” they said – with the emphasis on the “you” and not the “love.”

The Help is a book about many things, but mostly it’s a book about race.  It’s the story of black domestic workers in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s, and an ambitious young (white) writer who wants to write a book about them.  It sounded interesting, and the recommendations came from friends whose opinions I trusted.

And yet … I was scared of The Help.  Because just as soon as I started hearing the accolades from my friends, I started reading about the controversies surrounding the book in the press.  If there was a lot to potentially enjoy about this book, there was also plenty to be scared of.

Most of the controversy has to do with the fact that the book is written by a white woman.  Now, there’s no rule – written or unwritten – that says that white people can’t write about race; hell, I’m doing it right now.  The stickiness of this particular situation comes from the fact that Kathryn Stockett, a white author, writes in the first person for over 90% of the book, using three narrators – two of whom are black women.  It’s one thing, Stockett’s critics would say, to write about black women – but quite another to assume that you "get" a black woman’s identity so much as to write from her perspective.  And compounding this was Stockett’s choice to write these chapters in a form of dialect – “Law have mercy” or “I sho nuff gone do it,” and the like.

I decided it was probably best for me to avoid The Help altogether.  I didn’t have strong opinions about the book; after all I hadn’t read it.  When friends would continue to ask, “Have you read The Help?” – I would say no, and when they pressed me, I would tell them why.  When they would counter with arguments of their own, I wouldn’t argue back – again, we were talking about a book they had read but I had not.  And still, I was not moved to pick up the book and read it.

Then … I saw the preview for the upcoming film.

It’s no secret that while I’m a fairly avid reader, I’m a huge movie buff.  The trailer looked funny and touching, and everything my friends told me the book was.  While the book was something I could ignore or put off, I knew I was going to see this movie at some point.  And this presented a problem for me.  If I saw the film version of The Help, I was going to have opinions about The Help, and if I was going to have opinions about The Help, I needed to know exactly what my opinions were based on.  I was going to have to read this book.

And so, I read the book.

I can confidently say that reading The Help nearly destroyed my relationship.  During the three days (yes, only three days) it took me to devour Stockett’s novel, I barely looked up from my Kindle.  Dishes went unwashed, laundry went unlaundered, and all conversation in the house ceased.  “Sssh,” I’d say. “I’m reading.”

The book was everything my friends told me it would be and nothing like I’d hoped it wasn’t.  Well … almost nothing.  While I loved the plot twists, characterizations, wry observations, and overall humanity of the story, I will confess right away that “Law have mercy” never stopped being annoying.  Every time I read Stockett’s dainty Ebonics, I wondered – what would have been missed if she had instead written “Lord have mercy,” or “sure enough” instead of “sho nuff”?  I’m fairly sure that I would have been able to detect three distinct voices even so.  I don’t have much else to say on this topic, other than I really wish that Stockett had made a different choice.

And, as annoyed as I was, I wasn’t so annoyed that I didn’t devour the book over the course of three evenings, much to Shorebird’s dismay.  Honestly, I don’t know how well Stockett captured the interior landscape of a black domestic in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s, but I cannot deny that the characters leapt off the page. They reacted to their situations in complex ways that nonetheless made psychological sense.

I think what I was really afraid of was that The Help would join other works of literary or cinematic art, such as Dangerous Minds or The Blind Side, in a category of books, films, and stories that I call the Tale of the Nice White Lady.  The Tale of the Nice White Lady centers on a white woman who was born without the ability to form biases against people who are different from herself.  Unlike you or I (or the inevitable awful, horrible, evil white people who surround her), she knows in her soul that all human beings are equally human, but that some people require saving, and that she’s just the Nice White Lady to do it.  Nice White Ladies in books or movies make white people who read those books and watch those movies feel a whole lot better about themselves, mostly because they’re encouraged to identify with those Nice White Ladies, rather than examining their own privileges and prejudices.  White people who enjoy the Tale of the Nice White Lady leave the theatre (or put down the book) feeling good about themselves, but not necessarily motivated to do anything to make a difference in the world.  Nice White Ladies piss me off.

Skeeter, one of the narrators of The Help, is indeed a nice, white girl.  But unlike the Nice White Ladies described above, she’s not immune to having some blind spots around race and her own privileged position in society.  Stockett doesn’t do much to hide the fact that – at her core – Skeeter is an ambitious young writer – much more interested in publishing her first book than empowering a group of black domestics.  When she asks the maids she knows to tell her their stories so that she can compile them into a controversial book that she hopes will launch her career, she is initially surprised when they refuse.  They live in a world that she doesn’t understand and can't relate to.  When the maids finally agree to tell their stories, they don’t do it because Skeeter has persuaded them; rather, it is presented as an act of personal courage.  Yes, it helps the privileged white girl write her book – but they’re more concerned with, at long last, telling the truth.  And yes, Skeeter risks a little – her standing among her white neighbors in the Junior League – but this is nothing compared to what the black women of the novel are willing to risk.  Stockett knows this, and so do her readers.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t things about Skeeter to admire.  She is the only white woman in the entire story who seems to have ambitions beyond marrying a nice white (rich) boy.  Initially, she feels very sorry for herself, mostly because she’s a woman in a man’s world.  As the story progresses, she learns that she has privileges she had never considered, and that while her oppression based on gender doesn’t make up for her privilege based on skin color, neither does her privilege make up for her oppression.  The two simply co-exist, neither one being cancelled out by the other.  Of course, the black women she aligns herself with have privilege with regard to neither race nor gender – something the reader is free (if not deliberately encouraged) to ponder while reading.

The film version of The Help was released earlier this month.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m considering going tonight.  Shorebird is even planning to join me, which is awfully big of him, considering our rocky history with this particular story.

Of course, with the film opening up, many of the controversies that were reported on when the book was initially published are being revisited.  There’s a lot of anger I’m reading about, much of it focused on the Tale of the Nice White Lady, and whether or not this story fits that model.  A lot of other folks are upset by what’s not in this story – both the book and the movie (based on what I’ve read) focus almost exclusively on a cast of female characters, which doesn’t leave room to focus on the constant threat of rape and other forms of sexual assault visited on black domestic workers from the men who employed them.  Others take exception to the notion that the central character of the film (Aibeleen, played the by the extraordinary Viola Davis) feels actual love – real, maternal, all-consuming love – for the white child left in her care. These critics note that this is a white woman’s fantasy – a white woman who wants to believe that her black caregiver loved her heart and soul, with no trace of resentment or frustration.  There’s also a sense of exasperation focused on the lack of black authors and filmmakers who get the kind of exposure that The Help has received.  In truth, there is no lack of black storytellers who wish to tell their stories, but rarely do their efforts top the New York Times Bestseller Lists or get made into Hollywood films with Hollywood budgets.

I can’t really argue with any of these points.  The story Stockett tells is likely flawed, but I truly believe that there’s a lot of artistry at work there as well.  All of these arguments together seem to wonder, “does this story tell the truth?” – which to me, is a flawed question.  There is no single truth. I think the book tells the truth as Kathryn Stockett sees it, and there are other stories, other truths we probably need to hear as well.  That most of us will never hear those stories is a fault that belongs to all of us, and shouldn’t be placed solely at the feet of Kathryn Stockett.

I won’t lie– I’m really excited to see this movie tonight, and also a little nervous.  What if it’s offensive?  What’s worse, what if it should be offensive but I’m too coddled by the film’s insidious message and my own white privilege to realize it?  Am I asking enough from society? Am I asking too much from myself? Can both be true at the same time?

Girls Gone Republican

The longer the summer drags on without an announcement of some sort, it seems that Sarah Palin won't be running for President after all.  Which disappoints me, only because if Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann were going to run, I was hoping we could also recruit that batshit-crazy anti-Muslim weirdo Pamela Geller into the race as well. Because c'mon, how awesome would it be for the girl-power trifecta of the modern Republican Party to feature a Sarah, a Michele, and a Geller?

But even if Palin won't be running, I think we can all agree that she'll be a presence in politics throughout 2011 and 2012, for good or ill.  Most of my friends would certainly choose "ill," and I don't blame them.  Sarah Palin was a small-town mayor and half-term governor who (let's be honest) lies a lot, and I feel fairly secure in my belief that she adds a lot more heat than light to the national discourse.

But the same can be said of lots of political pundits.  And yet, there seems to be a special kind of scorn among by leftie friends reserved for Sarah Palin, a kind of seething hatred matched only by the hot wrath that they feel for surprise GOP Presidential front-runner (if anyone can be a front-runner before a single primary) Michele Bachmann.

Okay, so let's start with the obvious similarity between these two.  Yes, I'm talking about their vaginas.  Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are, according to my highly unscientific sampling of my friends, the two most hated figures in Republican politics right now, and they both happen to be women.

But just try and suggest that one has anything to do with the other, and you'll get an earful.  A friend of mine started quite the brouhaha on Facebook by posing this very thought just yesterday, and the response was quick - and often angry.

There seems to be this belief among liberals that they absolutely, positively cannot harbor any sexist thoughts by virtue of their very liberal-ness.  To be fair, you won't find many conservatives who will openly admit to sexism either - but the denials among liberals are, to me, especially ironic.  After all, you can't find many liberals who will tell you that sexism is a thing of the past, the way conservatives sometimes like to.  Yet, there are many on the left who know it's real, but refuse to imagine that any sexism lives inside of them.

I probably don't need to say this, but I have this niggling voice in the back of my head, shouting: "Let me be clear.  I am no 'fan' of either Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann."  If this particular rant has a point at all, it's not to defend either of these women, but rather encourage readers on the left to be honest with themselves, where these two women are concerned.

It might help to go back a bit.  When Barack Obama was campaigning for and eventually became President, I found a lot of the rhetoric used against him to be tinged - nay, saturated - with racism and racist assumptions.  You can't look at that now-famous Photoshopped image of Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose and deny that there is a lot of racist invective coming his way.  The very idea that Obama should be the first and only President in our history to be forced to make public his official birth certificate to prove that he's actually an American-born citizen is racist to the core.

And yet - when I was engaged in several political "conversations" (ahem) with my conservative parents during his campaign and administration, they grew very frustrated with the notion that they weren't allowed to criticize the man without being called a racist.  They had a point.  They, like almost every white person in American, probably harbor more covert, unconscious bias against people of color than they'd like to admit.  AND, they had some real concerns with Barack Obama's policies, worldview, and political philosophy.  They leveled many of the same criticisms against our last Democratic President, Bill Clinton - and no one ever accused them of racism when they did it.  It's not racist to criticize someone who just happens to be black, they'd tell me.  And they were right.

AND ... a lot of the criticism being leveled at Obama was and is racist.  But not all of it.  So it's complex.  And I think the way the left thinks about and reacts to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann is similar that way.

First of all, there's some stuff out there that is sexism in its purist form.  For instance, during the 2008 campaign, some voters were "concerned" that Palin, a mother of five, wouldn't be able to handle the pressures of being Vice President - or perhaps worse, might not be there for her children the way a good mother ought.  A man with a spouse and five kids would never hear this complaint.  It was sexist, and it was dumb.

But it's not always so obvious.

Last week, Bill Maher defended himself against the sexist charge by saying, "It's not because they have breasts.  It's because they ARE boobs."  It was a great line, and it got a lot of applause.  And I believe him when he says that.  And by that I mean, I believe that he believes it.

One denial that liberals are quick to spout when you inquire into their attitudes about Sarah and Michele is, "I can't be a sexist!  I voted for Hillary!"  Which would make sense, if sexism were as simple as we think it is.  But it's not.  Sexism is not as neat and clean as "Men good. Women bad. End story."  A lot of us (including me) loved Hillary because she was so smart.  But what's our definition of smart?  Is it possible that we assign intelligence to those who say things that we already agree with?  I'm not suggesting that our Secretary of State isn't as smart as you think she is.  She's done an amazing job at the State Dept. and in the U.S. Senate; she is clearly a brilliant woman.

The question I'm much more interested in is this: Are Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann as stupid as you think they are?  What I find really curious about our feelings about Palin and Bachmann isn't that we don't like them.  We (meaning we blue-state liberals) also don't particularly care for Sean Hannity, Eric Cantor, Rush Limbaugh, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, or John Boehner.  But while we think of these guys as being bad people who are wrong about so many things, we don't think of them as idiots, the way we frequently characterize Sarah and Michele.  We disagree with them all, but we do so a little differently.

Now ... are there men on the right we deride as less than intelligent?  Sure.  Are there women on the right that we respect for their ability to turn a phrase even while wishing them to their own special circle of deepest, darkest hell?  You betcha.  But by and large, there's a theme that's present when it comes to people we disagree with.  The men are bad and evil.  But the women are stupid.

Is it reasonable to suggest that a stupid woman would not have been able to turn an incomplete term as Alaska's governor into a media empire?  Am I weird to think that a woman who might very well win the Iowa Republican primary has the teensiest bit of political savvy?

Maybe, or maybe not.  But it's worth a thought.

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being

My parents have no idea what I do for a living.  I've told them numerous times that I work in the field of Diversity & Inclusion, and my mother just shakes her head and says, "Yes, but I don't know what that means."  And the more I've tried to explain it to them, the more mysterious my career becomes.

Basically, I help organizations to become more diverse and inclusive.  "Diverse" means (yes) more people of color and more women.  But it also means, more gay people, more people with disabilities, more people from different faith communities, more transgender people, and more military veterans.  More of what you don't already have, basically.  And "Inclusive" means that you treat people well.  There are other definitions, but that's pretty much the crux of it.  Everyone might not have the same experience at work, but everyone has an equal shot.

I don't believe it's a terribly difficult concept to grasp.  Admittedly, I've been thinking about it every day for the past thirteen years, and maybe that's why - but doesn't everybody know that we live in a society wherein people who are Black, Latino, Asian, female, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, athiest, Sikh, Hindu, or possessed of a disability have to take a lot of shit that other people don't have to deal with?

Honestly, I think that most people "get" that there are those in this world who are unjustly disenfranchised.  What they don't get, or don't want to get, is the flip side of the coin - that people who are white, straight, Christian, or temporarily able-bodied have this thing called "privilege."

Privilege is like the untouchable third rail of the Diversity & Inclusion conversation.  Nobody wants to admit that it's there - and yet, if you think about it, it must be there.  If someone is "less than," it begs the question: less than who?  If someone is down, then by definition someone else is up.  Simple, right?  Not for some people - and by "some people," I'm usually talking about some white people.

For those who are new to the concept of white privilege, the best resource I could possibly point you to is a classic essay by Peggy McIntosh called "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."  It's a really short read, and it spells out the issue plainly and concisely.  In it, McIntosh reflects on why it was so difficult for her to get the men around her to admit that their penises entitled them to all kinds of free stuff that society made women work really hard for - and how she started to wonder if she got any free stuff that other people had to work really hard for.  And she started to make a list.  And it turned into a pretty long list.  It included things like, "I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented," and "Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of my financial reliability," and "I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race." And as the list got longer and longer (she stopped at 26 items, but could have clearly gone on and on and on), she realized she was onto something.

For me, the most powerful thing about McIntosh's essay isn't the laundry list of free stuff that society gives to white people, it's that she (like most white people) was completely blind to her own privilege before she made a conscious decision to focus on it.  That's the tricky thing about privilege: not only are we unaware of it, but we're encouraged to be oblivious.  And ignorance is often just as difficult to confront than out-and-out hatefulness.  Because like the proud bigot, the ignorant are fiercely protective of their ignorance.  They don't know and they don't want to know, because knowing makes a person accountable, and it's a whole lot easier to live in this world if racism (and sexism, and ableism, and heterosexism, and all the rest) is somebody else's problem.

Privilege is why we have stupid-ass words like "reverse racism."  Terms like "reverse racism" are, to put it simply, complete and utter bullshit.  It's like saying, "I can totally understand racism against them, but racism against me is totally fucked up; like, it doesn't even make any sense."  When people talk about "reverse racism," here's what usually happened: 1) members of an oppressed community have expressed resentment toward those more powerful than they, and 2) a white person within earshot gets his or her feelings hurt because after all, they never individually owned slaves (never mind that they reap the benefits of their skin privilege each and every day, as I do, often without even realizing it).

Privilege is why no one on Fox News can admit that some members of the Tea Party are clearly and abjectly racist (see this and this and this and this and this), but can freely and easily use the racist tag to describe Barack Obama.

Not only is this accusation profoundly unfair and untrue, but it illustrates the key point about privilege.  When Glenn Beck thinks that he's the victim of racism, he feels it.  But when the world conspires to make him feel more intelligent, more patriotic, more moral, and just plain better than anyone who's a shade darker than he is, he can't feel that at all.

And I get why white people cling to the belief that they are more victimized by racism than anyone else; I do.  Owning your privilege is tough.  It requires you to reflect on your entire life, and realize that you've been the beneficiary of a lot of free stuff over the years.  And we Americans would like to believe that earned all that stuff.  And you might have earned some of it; I won't take that away from you.  But I guaran-damn-tee you that if you grew up white in America, you got some of that shit for free.  You didn't earn it all.  And once you get it through your thick head that your skin color (or your penis, or your heterosexuality, or your Christianity, or your temporary status as an able-bodied person, or the HIV-negative blood coarsing through your veins, or whatever else) has given you a place of unearned privilege, it's sort of incumbent upon you to level the playing field a little, in whatever way you can, even if that's just educating yourself whenever the opportunity arises.

When I started doing diversity and social justice work, I was motivated by the oppression I felt as a gay person, and I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't really prepared to deal with my skin privilege.  And yeah, at the beginning, I did take the weight of the world onto my shoulders, and I felt a lot of guilt.  And getting through the guilt (but remaining knowledgeable and accountable) wasn't easy. You know what's easy? Playing the victim.  Playing the victim is easy, and it's actually a lot of fun, especially when you get to keep all the free stuff.

Jim Daly: We Lost Marriage.

Much has been made of recent remarks by Focus on the Family President/CEO Jim Daly regarding his organization's quest to keep same-sex couples from marrying.

Here's some of what he said to World Magazine:

We're losing on [gay marriage], especially among the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex marriage. I don't know if that's going to change with a little more age, demographers would say probably not. We've probably lost that. I don't want to be extremist here, but I think we need to start calculating where we are in the culture.

And he goes on to outline what future FoF messaging around marriage might look like:

"The piece of paper that you get at the state to recognize your marriage is worthless. It's like registering your car. But if you're going to be a part of this church and you're married, you're going to be committed to your marriage. There's no easy way out."

Is it possible that I like this guy?

Probably not, because he makes his living moralizing, while looking to written artifacts of Bronze Age nomads who had no understanding of human psychology, biological evolution, or a round planet as the best guide we have to a moral life.  And you know what else: it's easy for him to say that the "piece of paper" that is one's marriage license is "worthless" when it's something that heterosexual couples can so easily take for granted.  But for same-sex couples who desperately need marriage rights in order to share property, protect their children, sit at the deathbeds of their spouses, and inherit from them without being gouged by crippling tax burdens (among 1,000+ other rights and responsibilities), that "piece of paper" can be incredibly valuable.

Still, I like the direction this guy is going.  If nothing else, he seems to finally understand what the LGBT community has been saying for years: we don't want to take over your religions; we only want that piece of paper, and why the hell do you care so much?

Why American Christians have for decades been hell-bent (yes, I chose these words carefully) on preventing loving and committed couples from protecting their families under the law - while the scourges of war, genocide, hunger, poverty, and disease remain unabated around the planet and here at home - is frankly beyond my understanding.  And if there's a sign that they're no longer going to do that, well ... fine with me.